Elias Theodorou says the little things cost him his last fight.
At The Ultimate Fighter 25 Finale, Elias Theodorou lost a controversial decision to Brad Tavares. On Fightful MMA's podcast Holy Smokes, host "Showdown Joe" Ferraro spoke with Theodorou about his loss. The Middleweight reflected on the loss and his opponent Tavares.
"Obviously it's one of those close ones. The judges most importantly gave it to Brad (Tavares) ,which is unfortunate. I think that has more to do with the fact he's a hometown guy," said Theodorou. "I think it was a great fight, I had fun being in there. I fought a tough opponent who's been in there with the best of the best, who only really lost to the people that were fighting for the title next," he continued.
Even though Theodorou thought Tavares received an unofficial hometown advantage, he saw mistakes in what he did during the fight. He especially regretted what he did during the last thirty seconds of the fight.
"I watched it. I've seen that at no point did he figure me out. There were just little mistakes that I made that he was able to counter. The last thirty seconds, someone throwing you an attempted rear naked choke and you think it's more prudent to look at the screen and give a thumbs up to say you're fine. Sometimes it kind of backfires," said Theodorou.
The worst aspect of losing was the lack of a winning bonus according to Theodorou. The 13-2 fighter said he wants to get back into cage by September, either at a fight card in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada or Japan. On this episode of Holy Smokes, Theodorou also talked about how he made more from "being a hair model" than his UFC paycheck and his experience attending the Toronto leg of Conor McGregor's and Floyd Mayweather's press conference tour.
Holy Smokes airs Tuesdays on FightfulPods.com.
